With these new apps, Google split parts of Google Drive into individual apps: Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Docs and Sheets are out now for both iPad and Android. Slides will be coming soon. All of the apps are free and Google Drive is still available.

Right now there are really only three ways in which the apps differ from the Drive app.

1. Each app is dedicated to just one individual tool in Google Drive.

2. When you open the app, you see your most recently edited files of that type only, which does mean less time searching and scrolling.

3. The apps have better built-in offline support, so you can easily view, edit and create files without being online.

When the new Slides app comes out, you will be able to create and edit presentations, so that will be a great new feature. Like I said above, I was hoping for more features, but these apps seem like a step in the right direction.

The Google Drive app is still an important tool on iPads, Android devices and computers. It is the bridge that connects all of the work you create in Docs, Drive, Slides and other apps. For workflow with other apps on your mobile devices, Google Drive is a powerful app to store, transfer and coordinate with other apps. These new apps, are also great because you will now have easy access to the specific Google tools you need.

So, I explored the apps even more and just a few days after I wrote the article above, there were some more changes.

Google Drive on the iPad no longer opens up Docs or Sheet in the app. If you tap on a doc in Drive it will open up Drive. It will do the same for spreadsheets. I can not wait until they come out with Slides so we can finally add and edit presentations on the ipad.

There are other features I had hoped to see, and I am hoping that separating the parts of drive into different apps is just the first step in that direction. I am really hoping for the research tool and the ability to add and edit images.

Jeanne Reed, @jeannereed1 , started a quick conversation on Twitter about other features that would be great to have on the iPad.Miguel Guhlin, @mguhlin , mentioned adding tables to Docs. Tim, @biology , mentioned adding charts to Sheets. I agree with both of them. We were all lamenting the loss of access in Drive, but I am sure we will get used to it.

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One thought on “An Introduction to the New Google Drive iPad Apps”

Hi Samantha,
Thanks for the shout out! I am very hopeful Google makes some changes. Isn’t that the sheer beauty of Google? We can count on changes. My immediate needs are for file organization. In addition to kiddos having a hard time, I have loads of recent files when I run the amazing AutoCrat script to help me with district projects, hundreds of files. So, showing recent files is not always helpful for me. Cheers, Jeanne